Fear Not: Why do we fear?

from my message on 2/17/13, start of the Fear Not series

What do you fear?  (see the 2 minute video on different phobias, that ends with a choice of fearing lots of things or the fear of the Lord)

We all fear something.  It is no sin to be afraid.  In fact, fear is good thing.  Psychology Today says "fear is a vital response to physical and emotional danger."  Fear can keep us alive.  I am afraid of snakes and lightning.  They can kill me.  It is a good thing to be afraid of them.

But fear can be paralyzing.  We leave in a fearful age.  We are bombarded by fear through the media.  Just this past week:  fear of astroids hitting the earth and then a meteorite strikes Russia.  Some people go on an ocean cruise and are stuck adrift upon  a ship with no power for days (sing, from Gilligan's Island, " a 3 hour cruise").  The G-20 try to allay fears of devaluing currencies which would have set the world markets into another round of recession.  The pope retires.  He doesn't die in office.  He retires for the first time in hundreds of years, and nobody is sure what to do.  A rogue cop killer goes on a rampage in California.

Fear can be good, but we can also become addicted to fear.  Fear can crowd out life and fun.I am going to tell a story on my wife Cathy.  Have no fear, I have asked her  permission to tell this story.  She lives with a lot of fear.  Early in our marriage we took a vacation to California.  It was a package deal:  roundtrip airfare from Austin to LAX, rental car, nights in motels along the way using coupons.  The first day we land in LA, and find a motel in Anaheim.  This is important, because what is in Anaheim?  Disneyland.  We go to the beach.  We eat out at a fancy Mexican food restaurant (TACO Bell!).  We are beat from the travel, the beach, the 2 hour time difference, and so go to bed early.  What seems like the middle of the night, our room is shaking. It sounds like thunder or explosions outside.  Cathy jumps out of bed and takes refuge standing in the door jamb, holding onto both sides.  She is yelling, "Earthquake!"  I look out the window, the earthquake is a fireworks display that marks the end of the day at Disneyland.   Can we get so caught up in fear that we miss life and fun?  Fear can so dominate that it can crowd out God's work and presence in our midst.

This kind of fear is worldly fear.  In Psychology Today, there were several coping mechanisms including:  deep breathing, meditation, diet, exercise, and community.  As I read them, I thought, "We Christians have been doing this for a long time.  Especially here at Lent, we fast and pray and worship and come together as supportive community."

There is another kind of fear in the Bible.  It is the fear of the Lord.  It could be called awe, reverence, worship.  To come into the presence of the holy is an awesome thing.  Therefore, when angels appear on the scene in the Bible, what is the first thing that they say, "Fear Not!"  They have been well-instructed in angel school to lower anxiety.  This kind of fear is a healthy fear.

We find it in Gen.15:1 where the LORD approaches Abram before he is firmly established in the land or has heirs and says, "Fear Not, I am your shield.  Your reward will be very great."   Proverbs 1:7 has the classic "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom."  This reverence is the pre-requisite to any wisdom in this world.  In the early church knew this awe, in Acts 9:31, "Meanwhile the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and was built up.  Living in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Sprit, it increased in numbers."  And then one of John Wesley's favorite passages, where this founder of the Methodist movement  understood that because of what God had done for us in Jesus we could "work out our own salvation in fear and trembling for it is God who is at work in you" in Phil. 2:12-13.

This is a good message to have the fear of the Lord.  But the message wasn't through with me.  I still had a lot of fear in my life.  To be candid, my greatest fear is that of never feeling good enough.  What can address that fear?

I thought as I pondered this message that I had removed the fear of the Lord from my daily practice.  You know me, how open and forgiving and graceful I am.  I am not about fear of the LORD.  I am about the love of God for us.  Then it hit me last night as I was sitting right here in the 3rd pew for the marriage of Jonathan and Diane.  I watched them give themselves totally into the care of the other.  The love was so awesome, so overwhelming we can barely stand it.  That's what came to me, I hadn't taken the fear of the Lord far enough.  It is about that love that is so powerful, risky, overwhelming that we run from it.  We run back to our old friends, the fears we grown comfortable with.  The awesome love of God threatens those other, old fears, and we are afraid to give them up.  The fear of the Lord is about receiving God's love and risking loving others that same way. 

It is what I John 4:17-18 is trying to say, "There is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear."  This love casts out the fear of punishment.  It is what we Methodists call having assurance, not and eternally.  We are held in God's love.  Secondly, it means that we can be free of self-concern.  This love allows us to love others without thinking of ourselves, the cost or risk to ourselves.

I wish I could tell you it happens instantly, like an on/off light switch.  But it is more like a rheostat.  It comes in degrees.  It is not like a jump.  More like a journey.

I have preached on fear before.  Once when I did this in San Saba, I had an intern pastor working with me from Perkins School of Theology.  I spent some 15 minutes talking about fear. He was tasked with offering the benediction.  He captured what I was trying to say in 5 words.  Fear God and nothing else.

May it be so for you.